Publications

he founding statement of Compass, signed by 20 leading figures on the democratic left. The central claim of statement was that the richness of human potential in today’s society requires both pluralism and egalitarianism to be embraced and combined in radical, distinctive ways by democratic...

We live in a world of what I like to call 'overlapping communities of fate' where everyday life – work, money, beliefs, as well as of trade, communications and finance, not to speak of the environment - connects us all with increasing intensity.
The word for this story is 'globalisation'...

Land value taxation (LVT) is an idea whose time has come. It is supported all the way across the political spectrum from Sir Samuel Brittan of the Financial Times to Dave Wetzel of Transport for London.

Work consumes much of our adult lives. It is the place where we find satisfaction, friendship and even romance. Yet while many of us would agree that we should work to live rather than live to work, nobody is indifferent about their experience of employment. How we work, when we work and...

A Citizen’s Income (CI) is ‘an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship’. A Citizen’s Income would help to tackle poverty by providing an income on which people with low earnings potential could build through paid work and savings.

Like Web 2.0, a new approach to energy would involve householders in the generation of heat and power, not just its use. In Grid 2.0, every building would become a power station, with small-scale wind and solar power, and boilers that generate electricity as well as heat. Linked to other users...

Written by Compass Chair Neal Lawson, the pamphlet is based on focus groups of people who voted Labour for the first time in ’97. The research carried out by Opinion Leader Research provides an important insight into what voter’s expectations were of Labour when coming to power, what they...

It is fashionable to argue that poverty is ‘not only about low income’. That is true up to a point. Poverty is also frequently associated with poor housing and neighbourhood conditions, ill-health and reduced educational opportunities. Organisations that actively involve people in...

Britain is in the throes of a remarkable social revolution, a great surge in the rate of wealth accumulation at the very top. Today’s rich are much richer than their predecessors a generation and more ago. The number of billionaires in Britain has more than tripled since 1990 while the number...

What will the world be like in 2020? We cannot make precise predictions. We can, however, extrapolate trends, examine scenarios and future-cast in order to prepare for – and shape - the future. Let’s start with the ‘mega trends’, of which I have chosen four.

The argument that rail privatisation would improve efficiency had little theoretical or empirical justification, especially as BR had achieved substantial productivity improvements in the 1980s under public ownership. Privatisation produced a very inefficient railway system, as an integrated...

Since the 60s there has been a remarkable improvement in education standards in England, brought about above all by the comprehensives. But the limits to that improvement have generated two opposing schools of thought about the way forward. One, led by the government, has argued for an injection...